


On the Subject of Identity:  An Extraterrestrial Approach

by alephthirteen



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Boundaries are respected, Boundaries suck sometimes, F/F, Girl's Gotta Eat, How is it that National City has only one newspaper, It's inconvenient for our heroines!, Kara is a Hunk, Mutual Pining, Nia is a Cutie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:54:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephthirteen/pseuds/alephthirteen
Summary: I sprint over to elevator eight and squeeze myself in beside a brick-shaped delivery man and a blonde in black jeans and a gray blouse with rolled-up sleeves.  That's all I can tell out of the corner of my eye.  If I turned my head, I'm worried I'll see the shoulders connected to those arms and the face that goes with the loose sprig of golden hair."First day, isn't it?" she jokes."Don't worry," she chortles.  "It's no big deal.  I was a wreck my first day."The elevator leaps.   It's moving fast, each little tremble in the cables above us exaggerated by the extreme speed.  The stop is so quick I fall backward and nearly smash my head against the railing.  She caught me."Thanks, uh…"My rescuer is Kara Danvers.  Exactly the woman I'm supposed to be impressing...and she has to catch me before I can lose a fight with the elevator.She's holding me gently, curling one arm around my back.I've seen this movie.  Disney's made it a hundred times.  The useless maiden nearly falls to her death and the dashing, blue-eyed, fair-haired knight snatches her from certain doom.  Neither of them speaks.  We close our eyes and the music swells and..."Fuck," I hiss.  "You're my boss."





	1. Oh My God, You're Her!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [J](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=J), [Argyle_S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle_S/gifts).

**CatCo Tower**

**-Nia-**

"You are woman," my headphones remind me. "You are powerful. You are smart. You are worth it."

At this rate, it's a race between my panic and my cell phone battery. Step by step, I make myself lift my feet and drop them. Getting closer to the front doors, however slowly.

The chatter about the post-earthquake rebuild of the Tower did not do it justice. The digital paneling woven into every pane of glass, from the lobby to Cat's old penthouse. The swooping balconies cut from stone and reinforced with veins of Nth metal. The helipads and executive studios and C-Suite offices perched at the top of the building, to reinforce the heights to which their inhabitants have soared.

Atop a sixty-foot-tall shaft of painted steel, tinted glass and tasteful rivers of digital signage sits a nine-story black panther, the body carved from granite and laced with Nth metal that shines like quicksilver in the morning sun. The great beast emerges from the formless tower and leaps heavenward with cafes tucked into its paws and swank offices set into its eye sockets. Its jaws open as if to roar and inside them, the employee balcony.

_ This is what happens when Lena Luthor gets to pick the redesign architects. She outdoes even Cat Grant's sense of style. Bit supervillain-y but… _

I quash that thought down, hard. Letting the image of Lena Luthor's jawline, her hips and that eerie porcelain skin of hers fill my mind's eye leads nowhere good. Nowhere good if I'm in public, at least.

"Look on my works, ye mighty…" I murmur.

CatCo Tower has always been a part of National City skyline. Now, it feels like I'm tiptoeing up to a temple to some once-forgotten goddess.

_ Is it possible to write Worldkillers a thank-you note? _

"Badge," the security guard intones.

"Ahh!" I shriek.

"Badge," she repeats.

She's twice my age and looks more than anything like a grandmother. A buff grandmother with a taser and an earpiece snuck behind her bright-red reading glasses, but a grandmother nonetheless. Retired cop, I suppose.

"Sorry."

She sets her coffee cup down and leans back in her chair.

"First day, honey?"

I nod.

"Worse, I'm late."

She smiles.

"I was late my first day," she recalls, smirking at some memory. "Course, I had to step over a pile of dead Daxamites to get in the door but potato, pahtoto."

"Where you headed?"

"Floor…"

I choke. 

_ Really, Lena? Really? You're going to put your office there and you're straight? _

"Floor sixty-nine," I mumble.

"Tribune?" she asks.

"Yeah, investigative reporter. Supposed to be starting with my mentor four minutes ago. Wait...how did you know?"

"Because the TV anchors give me attitude," she jokes. "Even on the first day."

"Elevator eight, kid. Hold on."

I sprint over to elevator eight and squeeze myself in beside a brick-shaped delivery man and a blonde in black jeans and a gray turtleneck. That's all I can tell out of the corner of my eye. If I turned my head, I'm worried I'll see the shoulders connected to those arms and the face that goes with the loose sprig of golden hair. 

"First day, isn't it?" she jokes.

"Apparently," I grumble. "It's completely obvious."

"Don't worry," she chortles. "It's no big deal. I was a wreck my first day. Walked in as my predecessor was walking out, bawling."

The elevator leaps. 

"Sandra's screwing around again," the delivery guy mutters. 

"Yup," the blonde agrees.

It's moving fast, each little tremble in the cables above us exaggerated by the extreme speed. The stop is so quick I fall backwards and nearly smash my head against the railing.

"I got you."

"Thanks, uh…"

Then I look at her face.

My rescuer is Kara Danvers.

Exactly the woman I'm supposed to be impressing with my confidence and she has to catch me before I can lose a fight with the elevator.

She's holding me like I were a fainting maiden, curling one arm around my back. One arm with muscles so defined I can feel them through the fabric of my clothes. She's looking at me with the strangest eyes I've ever seen. They're more than blue. Amid the dark irises are flecks of paler, icier blue. It's like the stars hide behind them, peeking out. A little nick of a scar between her eyebrows. Bowed lips.

_ Blue isn't the right word. What's a fancier word for blue. Azure? Sapphire? Cerulean? _

I've seen this movie. Disney's made it a hundred times.

The useless maiden nearly falls to her death and the dashing, blue-eyed, fair-haired knight snatches her from certain doom. Neither of them speaks.

This is the part where I lean in, I realize. Where we close our eyes and the music swells and our lips touch.

_ True love's ki- _

"Fuck," I hiss. "You're my boss."

Every part of my body, from my ears to my clit, is flushed and hot. My brain is begging me to rip her clothes off and...and what? Assault my supervisor in the first _ hour _ of my first _ day? _

"Well," she chortles, "Don't act like you're happy about it or anything!"

"I am!" I squeak.

"I just…"

I sigh. _No escaping this one, Nia, you useless lesbian!_

"You're so pretty," I mumble. "I sort of hoped you weren't my boss."


	2. They Do...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this story, we will have the following ships:
> 
> "Alexa" (Alex & Lena)  
"Niara" (Nia & Kara)  
"The Stripper Costumes" (Maggie, Sam, Kelly) [ONE HALLOWEEN THEY WENT AS SLUTTY DOCTOR, A STRIPPER COP, AND A SLUTTY BOSS AND ENDED UP IN JAIL FOR INDECENT CONDUCT... THEY PICKED IT, DON'T @ ME!]
> 
> ...at least as far as you know! #Suspense #UnreliableAuthor

**-Alex-**

"Wait here," I tell my men. "Watch the lobby. No one but us goes in the ladies."

Hansen nods, leaning close to his radio.

"Bravo 03, securing executive washroom. Sound off."

"Bravo 04, securing PA's office."

"Bravo 02, bodywatch."

"Told you to stay behind, Suze."

Vasquez scoffs, angling her weapon down so as not to scare the civilians so much. I know her better than to think the safety's on.

"Excuse you, Lena Luthor has stood in this room. Lena Fucking Luthor, you hear me? Breathed this air. I am not missing my chance for a contact high. Bodywatch, two meters max."

"Excuse you…"

Vasquez groans.

"Excuse you…ma'am."

A smirk flickers across my face.

"At ease."

I sigh.

"How's my hair?"

"What?"

"My hair, is it OK?"

"It's _ gay _if that's what you're asking," Vasquez chortles.

"Ass."

"I get to be an ass, ma'am. UN says so. Stonewall Accords of 1969. If you get to _ eat her out," _Vasquez mutters, nodding towards the conference room.

Lena is up in some big-shots face, her eyebrow raised and her palms flat on the table. He's slouching in his thousand-dollar chair to get his body under the table and away from her. She's no giant but something about her combination of a fearsome last name, the way her snow-white skin amplifies the fluorescents, her sneer, her eerie green eyes and the black, billowing dress she's wearing clues him in.

The message is simple. 

She is an _ uncommon _creature. Her image and her name and her works are known and will be remembered when this city has gone back to the desert it came from. No other woman will be the head of a trillion-dollar megacorporation before she's 30. No other woman will patent a collapsible spacesuit or a superconductive flywheel for a bicycle or a backpack-sized reactor. No other woman will out-think, out-invent and incapacitate Lex Luthor with a computer virus before brokering peace with the last survivors of Krypton. 

Lena is lovely and brilliant and fierce. She belongs to history. When we're ninety, little girls will stop by the nursing home and tell my Lena that she inspired them.

He is competent and well dressed but forgettable. He makes sure that the papers get filed to enact her visions. To facilitate her genius. He is dust and one day, to dust he will return.

So he's folding, quite literally, both himself and the argument.

I don't realize that I sighed like a lovestruck thirteen year old until I hear Vasquez swallowing her giggles.

"Anyway. If you get to fuck her, your battle buddy gets to give you crap."

I snort.

"Fine. I want documentation on these accords, though. And it's not just physical, Suze."

Vasquez chuckles.

"No way it could be, not with her in the mix. My girl remains convinced that Luthor is a false-flag operation by aliens. Claims that no one can be that good."

Lena holds the door open for her cowed subordinate. He slips past her, ducks his head and scurries away.

I hold up the takeout bag in one hand and wiggle my fingers stupidly with the other. Lena smiles, pulling her assistant aside.

My sister grabs my shoulder.

"Kara," I growl, "You're ruining it."

She lowers her glasses and stares at the takeout bag.

"Tai'nium crystal, eh?" Kara chuckles. "Don't let her eat the ring. Don't need her sublimating into a New God."

"Kara!" I hiss.

"Easy. I have superhearing. Your fiance-to-be doesn't."

Kara squeezes my shoulder. She stops before it hurts but I knew. She's offering to lend a hand...a hand that can rip planets in half.

Lena unlocks her office door and crooks one long, manicured finger towards me.

Come hither, her hands and her eyes and her hips say.

I go thither.


	3. Public Service Announcement from the Powers that Be...

The CW's Supergirl, Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman shows are currently doing their version of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths". I'm not a fan; they're heaping a lot of trauma on everybody, especially my poor Kara, and butchering characters to hit plot points.  
  
So I'm doing a fix-it-fic of the entire multiverse.

In homage to this idea, I'm going to be pruning some of my stories, which are growing beyond my ability to contain them, into smaller groups. I'm focus on the DC stories for now and likely rolling most of them into my "Columbia-verse" where we examine DC heroes (and other heroes) trying to save _our world. _Also, the heroes will get in more date nights if there are multiple Supergirls to swap in. Poor gal is getting _ragged _after doing 24/7/365 on-call (for no pay!). Lena may also judge Other Lenas and Other Kara's for their actions, possibly involving Kryptonian puppy eyes and sultry looks of sheer disdain!

I think this will add more wacky interactions and also, make the stories both more fun and easier to update. 

Currently, I do NOT plan to merge the original works or the Maleficient story into that, because they feel "too distant" from my other stories, nor will I likely merge "Crashing to Earth" with the other Supergirl stories as it is hard(er) sci-fi and the multiverse really isn't and I feel it is best as its own epic and also that _that version_ of Kara Zor-El (bigger, blacker, butcher, not taking shit) is so distinct as not to mesh well with her counterparts.

I plan to have the original meetings be light-hearted and in the spirit of crossovers, each team will handle their zone most of the time, maybe calling for help now and then, or having hijinks because someone who looks like Supergirl was spotted on the east coast, doing something out of character...  
  
  
As it stands, I'll take "_**On the Subject of Identity: An Extraterrestrial Approach**_" and "_**Adversaries: An All American Tale of Apocalypses, Curses, Runaway Goddesses, Demons, Angels, Used Bookstores and Potlucks**_" and merge them into "_**Mundis Triformis: How Lena Luthor Saved Pride, Conquered the Multiverse and Made a Mess**_" as inhabitants of the various multiverses there and also backup for each other. This will not diminish the scope of Mundis Triformis, it will still have spinoffs with the Katie McGrath/Morgana/Lucy Westerna characters and a follow up that deals more heavily in Earth-33 (the real world)  
  


####  [Mundis Triformis: How Lena Luthor Saved Pride, Conquered the Multiverse and Made a Mess](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19067392)

> **Already close-to-canon**
> 
> Supergirl-centric and Multiverse-centric, already a crossover

####  [On the Subject of Identity: An Extraterrestrial Approach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019097)

> #### Already close-to-canon
> 
> This Supergirl compliments the one in "Mundis" well, the reveal and other big-deal plot points are in similar places and since _Mundis Triformis_ is Kara/Lena & Alex/Maggie and _Subject of Identity_ is Kara/Nia and Alex/Lena, no one has to get cheated on.

####  [Adversaries: An All American Tale of Apocalypses, Curses, Runaway Goddesses, Demons, Angels, Used Bookstores and Potlucks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374513)

> **Uses characters from "Lucifer" and has a very different rural setting  
  
**These characters have appeared in "Crashing to Earth" but that was a one-time deal.


	4. Distracted?  I'm Not Distracted!

James taps me on the shoulder.

"Krypton to Danvers," he whispers.

"Huh?" she mumbles.

"You're distracted at work...and Lena's upstairs, so that's not the reason. As your boss..."

He folds his big, shirt-sleeved arms and frowns. Rather, he tries to frown. It just doesn't fit his face, somehow. The more hindsight I have, the more I get why I crushed on him. The way he listened and supported me and acknowledged his own fears, the width of his smile, the  _ belief  _ he had in me, even when I was a hot mess better suited to cracking oil tankers in half than saving lives. 

James is connected to himself and supportive and patient. All wonderful. Really, everything except his gender. If someone had told me that  _ women  _ were more likely to be communicators and good at processing their emotions here on Earth, it would have improved high school immensely.

Rao help me when I encountered another good listener with a world-class smile and an unwavering belief...this time one with green eyes, dangerous curves, the name of an enemy and a good-natured jab as to what little old me was doing shadowing Clark Kent.

I can't be jealous of Alex, not really. My strongest--perhaps my only--chance with Lena was to tell her the truth the moment we met and get down on my knees to beg. To do exactly what I felt like doing, rather than what's logical. 

Their lunch-date proposal is so professional and grown up and…ugh! Alex kills at adulting. 

This date going to leave me with diabetes, Alex with a stupid grin...

"Rao!"

…Alex with a stupid grin and Lena with the curl in her lip and both of them walking funny. 

Too late, I realize I slipped and let my superhearing take in the building. Then, like a moron, I turned to face the sound of my sister screaming. 

"Booze, I need booze," I groan. "And a drill. I did not need to see, hear, or X-ray vision that little scene."

"I would think X-ray vision means it would be less gross," James muses.

"Except it's not X-ray, it's neutrino obfuscation. So I can soft tissue, James. I can see blood flow. I can see jiggling, for Rao's sake. Bones are just brighter."

"Anyway," he scoffs, waving his hand. "How's day one of mentorship?"

I swallow a lump in my throat. 

_ Since when do I get lumps in my throat? _

"She'll be fine!" I blurt out.

I rip my eyes away from Nia to actually pay attention to James. No easy feat, with her having decided to spend lunch dazzling the kids in employee daycare at the end of the hall. She's crouched down in front of an eighteen-month-old, no doubt wrinkling her peppermint-striped pantsuit while explaining the word…

...she's explaining the word "cookie" to him.

"Kara," James begins, his voice low and quiet. "Go talk to her. Your both adults. What I'm seeing?" 

He sighs. 

"It's precious."

I blow a raspberry.

"I'm not… I don't have a crush on her! That's ridiculous. I'm her boss."

"Crinkle," he teases, tapping my forehead. 

He taps my cheek with a pencil. "You're blushing, too."

"The Last Daughter of Krypton does not  _ blush _ , James."

"Uh-huh...bet she doesn't eat potstickers, either."


	5. Get it Out of My System (Nia)

"Ah!"

I sit up so fast that I bang my nose on the corner of the library book.

"Ow. Love you too, Hilary."

Yvonne looks over.

"Girl, either you start sleeping in a _ bed_, like God intended or I'm putting a helmet on that moneymaker of yours…"

Yvonne tut-tuts and goes back to cooking. She's like that. She cooks and fusses and listens to my gay panics and my ranting daydreams of climbing the corporate ladder even though she has who-knows-how many sisters and cousins with their own dreams. All she asks in return is that I not make grossed-out faces when Yvonne gushes about her sexual conquests or fall asleep when she's talking about banking.

Whatever happened in college to make them best friends was the greatest blessing of my entire life. 

Booze was involved, so I'm fuzzy on details.

It had something to do with College Republicans, this guy named Adam, spray paint, kicking someone in the balls, pie, and saving the African Student Caucus from losing their slot at the student activities fair. That was the first week of sophomore year. By graduation, I had been quasi-adopted by four intense, loving and extremely different families, none of them mine, but all of them mine. 

I grab my phone and start scribbling notes about the dream. 

There was this red flame that destroyed National City in one instant. Spaceships and people screaming and running. 

A dude in a red, sort of ceramic-looking suit with little lightning bolts over the ears. 

A weirdo in a green hood with a bow and arrow. 

A blonde in white leather with batons and throwing knives who kicked more ass than men twice her size but who could barely keep up with her glamazon girlfriend. 

Right towards the end, there was a black woman with cornrows and a suit of armor the color of a bumblebee, walking through gunfire like it was rain and stomping her foot on the ground and throwing soldiers like dry leaves. She was fighting with an older man -- her father, maybe -- who could shoot lightning.

This feels like something I should report, and I would if the police took anonymous tips of bad dreams about comic books.

World-ending alien witches, those are a thing. Sadly, bulletproof black people are not.

The last dream right before waking up…

_ That was just a reminder to recharge my vibrator _.

It was vivid, that's for sure. Implausible as all hell, getting fucked into a mush while the brass railing of the dive bar dug into my back. My head bobbing with the force, too slack to keep my eyes on her face. My teeth clamped hard into her shoulder to keep the screams down. Her golden, sweat-salted hair falling in my eyes.

"Yvonne?"

"Yo?"

"When do the lotto numbers get announced?"

"Girl, you are too smart for that shit!"

"I'm serious."

"Dunno. Eleven o'clock news, I think."

Time to test a theory.

_ Leave it to the State of California to have an online lotto ticket. _

"Brought to you by Yahoo," I scoff. "'Course it was."

I punch in the numbers, just in case. Ten dollar ticket for a $15,000 prize? I'll take those odds. Besides, there was some reason my brain came up with a too-long phone number for March of Dimes on the TV over the blonde's shoulder. 

Yvonne plops down onto the couch, holding out the second bowl of soup.

"Lentil."

"Aww!"

"Yeah, yeah, keep your gluten-free kale panties on, you elitist weirdo. Need to do healthy food sometimes."

I roll my eyes.

"You're from California, too."

"Nuh-uh. I'm from Compton."

"Which is in LA, isn't it?"

"California is a fairy tale about movie stars and gizmos and apps. Compton's in the real world, dumbass."

Yvonne rests her head on my shoulder.

"Real as it gets," she sighs.

I pat her knee.

"We're watching the news, tonight."

"No," Yvonne mumbles, hiding her face behind her now-empty bowl. 

"Yes. Because it's good for our character."

"Nia, no…"

"Nia, yes!"

I lunge. She grabs me by the ankle but I make it.

"Woo-hoo!" 

"You are a lunatic," Yvonne grumbles.

"Shh! Look at this."

I toss my phone up on the couch next to her.

"So what, eight out of twelve is no money, honey."

I smash the up volume button.

"...and since it's Wednesday, we're going to play Scramble for Scratch!" the hostess cheers. Canned laughter all around.

The last numbers start spinning. One by one, they stop. Exactly like in my dream.

_ Holy shit! _

Yvonne looks at my phone, then the TV, then me.

"You're buying the groceries this year."

I fist-bump her.

"Deal."

= = = = = 

Experts say its a bad idea to go on a spending spree after winning the lottery.

The problem is that experts having spent three days fantasizing about blonde hair, tanned skin and muscles right out of something by Michelangelo. Experts are not planning to waltz into one of National City's gayest bars hoping for a hookup. Hoping for a blue-eyed soft butch to fuck my crush for my boss right out of my head. Experts are not hoping to walk in to work on Monday looking like I belong.

"How do I look?" I ask Yvonne.

"Like you're going to be poorer," she jokes.

"Seriously, Yivvy."

Yvonne smoothes the sleeves and flicks the price tag in to view. 

"Whoever you're trying to impress...she worth it?"

"Yeah. I think she is. And stuff that looks good on me isn't cheap," I sigh. "Even after everything...not quite right."

The dysphoria keeps a list and on bad days, it likes to remind me.

_ Too skinny. _

_ Not enough hips. _

_ Hands a bit too big. _

_ Chin a bit too wide. _

"Oh no," Yvonne snaps, waving her finger at me in a manner eerily like her grandmother's. "Do not start that crap, Nia Kioki Nal! You are no less a woman than Jugs McGee out there."

"Ew!"

"You're more of one, come to think. Pretty sure only 20% of those were hers. She misses a payment, they probably get repo'ed or some shit."

"It's the truth," I sigh.

"Bitch, if you don't quit doubting your curves, I will get a tape measure and get on Wikipedia," Yvonne snarls, arms folded. "See if I can get your brain started."

"But that dress is still a lot of money," she reminds me. "If she's gay, you should get a nice flannel shirt. The most expensive one of those was like seventy bucks."

I throw one of the reject bras at her face, hanger and all.

= = = = = 

_ This was a bad idea. _

I grab the railing of the bar like it's a rope thrown to a drowning woman.

"You are not liking it?" the woman next to me asks.

"No," I croak.

"Pity. If you do not drink, how will be stupid enough to fuck an ugly man?"

"Hoping I don't."

"If you don't dance, how will you fuck a pretty girl?" she teases.

I cannot deal with her voice right now. The edges are soft, but at the center it's icy and her accent--Russian, maybe?--only makes me shiver harder. The way the word 'fuck' rolls from her tongue like she were talking about the weather doesn't help. 

"Your accent," I ask, stalling for time. "Russian?"

"Father. Mother was…" 

She sighs.

"...Irish."

"Oh."

"I came here to steal the election for orange man. You know one. Crazy as rabid bear. He looks like big hairy grapefruit."

"Yeah right," I snort.

"I knew I could make you laugh."

Just like that, the accent is gone. I glance over. Straight black hair, eyes like a blue diamond, a little scar breaking up her right eyebrow ever so slightly. Her dress is sleeveless, crimson, and clingy, making good use of her biceps and her shoulder blades. She's broad-shouldered and broad-hipped and...my god...her abs peek through the dress when she moves. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that no one's got their head between her legs already. 

"Kara?" I croak.

"No. I do not know anyone named Kara."

_ Oh, thank god. Because you're everything I wanted, but you're not actually my boss. _

"Nia."

"Linda."

"Buy you a drink?" I suggest.

"Old fashioned dame," Linda purrs. "I like those."

= = = = = 

"Linda!" I pant, trying to push her head away.

Her tongue is hot and slick and she's _ determined _but the human body has limits and I hit mine an orgasm or two ago. I can't make my legs respond below the thigh and I don't want to end up in the paper for collapsing onto the floor of a bar bathroom like a rubber chicken.

If this "Snapper" is as bad as Kara says, he'd make me write the article but forbid me from citing myself as a source. 

"Stop, stop, stop…" 

She wipes her mouth on her hand and crawls up my body.

"You taste good," she sighs.

"Thanks?"

_ Thank god she let me take the dress off, first. _

Not that it wasn't worth it.


	6. Sisters can be irritating.  So can evil clones.  (Kara)

"What is this?" Linda asks, staring at the TV with such irritation that I'm surprised she hasn't heat-visioned it to pieces.

"Football. They play it on Sundays."

"It is morning," Linda complains. "it should be cartoons."

"That's Saturdays," I remind her.

"These men are weaklings. They crash into each other but stop all the time. This is not battle or sport."

"Nope," I chuckle. "I think it's mostly an excuse for car commercials, to be honest." 

She cocks her head, her hair spilling out from under the short black wig she uses.

I superspeed past and snatch it. She curses at me in Russian and grabs for my hands. I try and dance away, succeeding only in getting bear-hugged and cracking the arm of the couch.

With her hands dancing under my arms, I'm laughing far too hard to check our forward momentum. We crash right into the wall between the living room and what used to be Alex's home office. I use it for storage, so now we're roughhousing in a pile made of early-revision Supergirl suits and the DEO's junk drawer.

"Quiet!" Linda snarls, her eyes violet and crackling with lightning. "You will wake my guest."

"Guest?" I ask.

"Yes. Small. She was pretty and sad. She is even prettier naked."

"Awww! Look at you," I tease, pinching her cheek. "My lesbian shadow, all grown up!"

Trying to tease her, anyway. Linda's somewhere between a twin, an evil-adjacent doppelganger, and an annoying kid sister. Annoying, perceptive, unstoppable and unbreakable. 

_ Now I know how Alex felt. _

"What's her name?"


	7. So fucking awkward...  (Nia)

My phone is buzzing. With what remains of the muscle tone in my arms, I manage to find my clutch and dump it out on the floor. After a pathetic, curse-filled hunt, I find it.

"H'lo?"

My throat is scratchy from all the screaming. God, I hope her bedroom was professionally soundproofed by a team from NASA.

"Bitch, where _ are _you?"

"Phone calls usually start with 'hello', Yvonne."

"Trans women don't disappear at 2am for _ good reasons, _usually."

"Shit," I groan. "Yeah. Sorry. I met someone."

"Yeah?"

I can somehow _ hear _Yvonne calming down. She's in her yellow bathrobe, the ratty one she wears on bad days. She's probably actually drinking her coffee now, having been too worried before.

"So, was she nice?"

I groan.

"Mmm. Real gentlewoman," I reply. "And god, she was _ built. _ Total gun show. And her abs! Her abs were...let's just say they were ribbed for my pleasure."

"TMI, girl. You at her place?"

"Yeah."

"Safe?" Yvonne demands.

"Yivvy, I'm good. I'll stay here, if she lets me. See you Monday night, if not sooner."

Yvonne sighs.

"Call me if anything goes wrong. Anything. I have a cousin and two aunties in that neighborhood. They will _ fuck her up _if she hurts you."

I roll my eyes. Unless I misremember, those aunties are married to each other and total heartbreakers. They would probably just high-five Linda.

"Love you, roomie."

"Love you more."

"Bye, bitch."

"Bye, white girl."

I look around the room. My dress is hanging over a cheap office chair at a cheap desk. The bra is KIA, from the look of it. I know for a fact my panties are in ribbons. Worth it for the orgasm I had when she brought the scraps up to her nose.

"Hmm."

Guess I can just walk out there buck naked. Nothing she didn't see last night.

_ Oooh, even better. _

It never made sense to me, how in movies, women would gather the bedsheets around themselves the next morning. I assumed I was for the censors but running my hands over this silk, I'm not so sure. 

_ When better to try it than when I feel like the most important woman in the world? _

It's harder than Nicole Kidman makes it look in that Batman movie, but I manage. Bunching more of it up around my middle, I get my feet clear enough to walk.

The apartment I'm in is...adorable. That's the only word for it. 

Each wall is in bright pastels, robin's egg and mint green and cotton candy and mango. One side of the hallway is mango, one cotton candy and looking forward I see that these colors wrap all the way around the living room, meeting in a clash of blocky triangles around a huge bay window. 

Paintings line the hallway, probably a skilled amateur because even though the precision of brushwork puts Rembrandt to shame, the same faces show up over and over, and one of them is Linda's. Well, a blonde version of Linda and maybe younger. She must have gone through a bubblegum pop phase in high school before settling on her dime-store detective novel femme fatale look.

I drag my fingers along the wall as I go. This place is so nice, I wouldn't be surprised if it was scratch-and-sniff.

I can smell something baking. Muffins or banana bread.

_ Aww? Breakfast? Here I was thinking I was a one-off hookup and feeling guilty for sleeping over. _

The shower is running and I hear singing in some language I'm not familiar with.

Right before the living room are two bedrooms, one to each side. One door is painted in slashes of gold and crimson and indigo, another in blocks of white and gray.

_ Huh. Broadcasting your personality on a door? _

There's my target.

Linda is on the couch, head back, eyes closed, pinching her nose. What looks like a black wig is hanging on the arm of the couch. That answers my whole puzzle as to why a natural blonde with _that _magical shade would ever dye a single hair.

_ Headache? I can fix that. _

There's a massive scarf in a bowl on the dresser by the bedroom door. Grabbing it, I tiptoe forward. I have to adjust my grip several times. This scarf feels like it's woven from lead.

I loop it quickly around her eyes.

"Wha?"

"Shh."

I clamber over the couch, sling my legs over hips and shove my hand in her boxers.

_ Go slow, _I remind myself.

What I want to do would hurt her. She's barely moist and even if she took everything I gave her last night, that was after hours and hours and we both were leaving puddles on the sheets at that point.

"Uhh," she groans.

"Relax," I tell her. "Focus on that. Feels good?"

She nods.

After a few timid strokes, all at the edges, her hips tilt upwards.

"More," she hisses.

Dragging my fingertip along the length, I feel her heat and petals of slick skin.

I don't hold back. She didn't like it last night.

The first thrust, I give her one finger, just to lull her into a false sense of security. The next, I add another. Then another. Then another.

"Oh, Rao…" she breathes.

_ Rao? _

"Fuck me," she whimpers.

The angle sucks, so I tie off the blindfold and get down on my knees. I push in, slowly, making sure to tickle every wrinkle and fold she has on the way in and then loosening my grip on the way out, filling her even more.

She's tight. Feels like my hand is in a metal pipe. It's scary, depending on what's she's like when she comes.

"Come for me," I demand.

"I need your name," she rasps. "I need to know who I'm making love to…"

"Nia," I reply.

Three things happen. I'm up against the outside wall, completely wrapped in the sheets. Someone is yelling in Russian and someone is yelling in that other language. I can feel a few splinters in my hand. Pulling the sheets down, I see that the fractured remains of the couch's armrest are in my hand. 

How this happened, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure a magician came in and stopped time.

Two knockout blondes are arguing at the bathroom door. Both tall, both muscular, both wearing a crown of bouncy golden curls. Both have their arms folded and either set of biceps is something I could chip a tooth on. One is wearing boxers and an old T-Shirt with the Superman logo on it and one is wearing a towel. 

I'm not sure if they're twins or just lookalike friends but if so, all of a sudden I am down for the threesome-with-twin-sisters kink.

_ This is not fair to my ovaries. _

"What did you do, Linda?"

"I brought home a woman, like you suggested."

Well, the accent settles which one is which.

"I wanted you to get out more, make friends. Not hook up with my...my...friend from work!"

_ Friend from work? _

Fuck.

"Kara?" I call out. "Oh my god."

"Fuck," she hisses.

"Seeyouatworksorryforthemixuphaveanicemorning!" Kara babbles.

There's a blur past me and a draft from the suddenly open window. Through the window, I can hear police sirens. In the closet door she forgot to shut behind herself, I can see half a dozen versions of Supergirl's suit, hanging next to racks and racks of metallic gizmos with alien writing on them.

"Well, shit."

_ My boss, who I just accidentally fingerbanged, is Supergirl. _

Linda rubs her shoulders as she approaches me, avoiding my eyes.

"I am sorry, Nia."

"Did you bring me here just to trick Kara? Did she ask you to?"

"No!" Linda hollers.

"I wanted you, Nia. It was all true. Kara hasn't told anybody but I spent most of my life on a Russian military base being trained by a madman. There was an accident with one of Lena Luthor's experiments and I was created. Woke up naked in the snow in Siberia."

"Brr," I tease.

"I knew nothing. Not my name, not who I was, not what I could do. Lex Luthor kidnapped me to use me for his own ends. I've only been free a few months. So being out with people? Being normal?"

_ Lex Luthor? Superman's enemy? The guy Kara won her pulitzer for taking down? _

"Yeah?"

"Being normal is precious, Nia Nal."

She holds out a card.

"If you never want to see me again, I understand. If you do, you can find me here."

On one side, it has her cell number.

On the other it reads:

** Linda Lee, LMSW  
** ** Personal Advocate  
** **** Project for a Fair America

"Social worker?" I ask.

"Yes."

She sighs.

"I didn't even know my own name, and I was being put through ultranationalist Soviet propaganda classes eighteen hours a day. Capitalism is bad. Communism is good. Lex sends me on a mission here and I realize they're half right."

I swallow.

"Capitalism is bad."

She nods.

"Once Kara freed me from him, I wanted to do something. I could see it everywhere. Evil. I think American's don't even see it because they're used to it. IT seems normal that children should go into debt buying lunch at school. It seems normal that people should die because they can't get meds. It's the way it's always been, so it must be good."

"Kara said I couldn't destroy every corporation in America. So I did this."

"Huh," I mumble stupidly. "Wait. That story came out four months ago. How did you get through college and a graduate program in four months?"

"We cheated. Because I am Kryptonian, there's a technology that can put information into my brain. Kara's sister downloaded the college and graduate courses and then we fabricated the paper trail. Then I took the test."

"Huh."

"Can I finish making you the bread?" she pleads.

I'm about to throw a fit and storm out in a fit of gay drama when my stomach growls.


	8. Blowing off steam and denting steel (Kara)

**Kara**

  
  


I zip the jeans up and cast my eyes around for my belt.

"Shala?"

The petite, raven-haired Daxamite lifts her sweaty head and fixes her chocolate eyes on me. I'm not sure if it means I hit rock bottom or if it means I am becoming more open-minded but I just fucked a Daxamite just to clear my head.

Shala was mid-level, at least, the people who had to take care of the slaves and actually keep them whole because their higher-ups wanted a large, healthy workforce. According to what I've read, the genetic engineers the empire employed modified her caste's genes for higher empathy and mathematical skills. 

Before she left, she was in charge of "Juvenile Nutrition" for the slaves. In a hideous place, she was there to fill tiny bellies affordably and efficiently so they wouldn't be beaten down husks by adulthood. It's why the Rigellian freighter captain didn't space Shala when she picked her up with the freed slaves. She says a Helgrammite toddler spoke up on her behalf. 

Hard to hate her like I did Mon-El.

"Mmm? Not since you wrapped it around my neck," she jokes. "Fuck that was hot."

I roll my eyes and open up my senses. 

Neutrinos are the sneakiest particles in the universe. They go through nearly everything unimpeded. Only a tiny fraction bounce off or slow down. In the corner, near a sixty-ton cauldron for molten aluminum, the hard titanium clasp on my belt reflects a few more neutrinos than the cement in the background. I see pale blue and not dull, smoky black.

_ Were we over by that smelting vat at one point? _

With a shrug, I kick off and fly lazily across the abandoned factory.

My eyes were on Shala's face but what I saw was Nia's face, her cute, heart-shaped lips and her baby-deer eyes and her quick, mile-wide grin. 

_ This is bad. Really bad. _

I've fought robots and Daxamites and death-cult witches and I've had Lex Luthor, broken at my feet, begging for mercy while his sister sneered beside me, revolver raised.

Walking away and leaving Lex to Lena's ideas of justice was the hardest thing I've ever done. Until this morning. Until I pulled Nia's gifted, eager hand out of my cunt and ran away like a frightened child without a word about how nice it was.

I think I'll have to come back later and destroy the place, just for privacy's sake. Various parts of the factory have negative impressions of the female body. The cast of a bare breast here or a butt-print there and in one case, a detailed print of Shala's screaming face in an aluminum container's siding. Handprints from Shala's small hands are dug into the iron crucible. One of its supports was ruined when I threw her up against it. I see the dents my fingers made for leverage so I could ride her harder. There's a gash in the roof where I slipped up with my heat vision when she nibbled my clit.

Shala wanted it rough the first night we were together and soft the second night. That was months ago and I think she kept my phone number because we are the only two people in the city, if not the United States, who can actually let loose during sex. All the others durable enough for a romp with me are my nephews. That is not happening.

I suppose Sam but seeing her with Maggie and Kelly is too cute to deal with. Maggie won't admit it but she wasn't quite that happy with Alex before they broke up. If I get in the middle of their relationship, it'll be to boost it up not tear it down.

"Call again sometime, Blondie," Shala teases, ruffling my hair. "Don't keep a girl waiting. I know I'm not your ideal woman but if I don't hear about some epic love affair of yours, I'm starting one."

"Who knows?" I sigh. "Could happen."

"Who knows?" she agrees.

"Walk me home, Kara."

The lady asked nicely.


	9. Self-sabotage and self-immolation (Nia)

**Nia**

A queer elder back home had a saying that there comes a moment in every lesbian's life when it hits her. She is deeply, truly, panties-soakingly _ doomed _ and her life is ruined. The reason is _ that girl _whether she's the one you stand up to your crazy parents for or the one you switch colleges for or the one you get gay married to in Bugfuck, Arkansas, which her elder swears, hand to god, is the name of her hometown.

Sappho takes one look at the poor gay's life plans and from beyond the grave she places a woman in her path that is more tempting than fame, riches, success, safety, anything. 

She said it was like a seizure. One moment, you're fine and the next, you see a pretty girl and walk into a revolving door or crash your car. If the gods are merciful, the girl you just made an ass of yourself for laughs. If you are truly blessed, she asks if you are all right.

I'd hoped my moment had come and gone when Kara caught me in the elevator. Failing that, I'd hoped it was when she pulled my hand out of her. False alarm. No big deal.

Then it happens.

I reach for my coffee -- third Starbucks hit of the morning, which is totally normal, shut up boomer -- and manage to pour it right into my lap.

I've hardly had time to yelp before I'm on the roof in Supergirl's arms. 

"You all right?"

I can only hiss in pain. 

She vanishes back downstairs and comes back, tromping up the stairs as Kara.

"OK, then let's get you comfy."

She shucks off her button-down. Fuck, she's in a men's undershirt and that's _a lot _of clinging to both abs and boobs and she bunches the shirt up behind my head before lowering me back down. She lowers her glasses and I start to say I don't need help but it's too little, too late, she's using her powers to inspect my injuries, which of course are also my lady parts. 

Because why would I be able to catch a break?

"You haven't burned but that can't be comfortable. I'm going to help you cool it down, all right?"

"Uh, I'd rather keep my clothes on," I mumble. "Since you're cute."

She smiles. It's like all the sunlight that gives her her powers just pools in her smile.

_ Fuck. _

A stream of cool air hits my navel and tracks down in slow swoops. So much better. Also, I didn't know that having my clit go from painfully hot to chilled and goosebumps popping up from my inner thighs to my mound could be sexy but holy fuck it can.

_ Double fuck. _

"You're trans, aren't you?" she asks.

"How?"

_ Right. Moron. She can see what's missing and those little nodes where the orthopod refused my pelvis. _

I don't know why I was so dead set that I needed my damn bones reshaped to give me wider, more female hips but I was.

_ Ohfuckohfuckohfuck, I basically raped her and she didn't know I was trans. She's gonna kill me and use the gay panic defense. _

"Sorry," I babble. "I'll get out of yo-"

Two powerful arms pin me down before I can scramble away. Whatever she has to say, no power on Earth would free me from listening to it.

"It doesn't bother me," she murmurs. "I'm _impressed,_ Nia. That's hard work. Scary."

"Not like being Supergirl!" I snap.

"No. Harder. I am seen as a hero because of things my body can do that I didn't ask it to. People are afraid of trans folks because they have the guts to...to...to…"

She screws her eyes shut and dear God in heaven, one day I am licking syrup out of her forehead crinkle she makes when she's nervous.

"We make our bodies do things they weren't mean to do."

She nods.

"The scariest, toughest heroes I know are humans. People like Batman. He does it to help heal himself and be able to look at himself in a mirror. It's not like he even has it that bad. Cis, male, rich, doing the foster dad thing and dating a smoking hot jewel-"

She blushes.

"Jewelry appraiser. Yup. Selina works for Tiffany's."

"But it's about making himself whole. And he has to make sure no one else went through what he did." 

"Well," I mumble. "That doesn't make me feel like an underachiever at all."

She lays down beside me and we stare up at the helicopters buzzing around. 

"You could've told me you were Naltorian, Nia."

"What?"

"Just now, I spotted the inner cranial crenellations. They attach to the temporally sensitive brain lobes."

"Oh. Why were you looking at my skull? Like, the inside of my skull?"

"Because I was looking at your eyes and they were dilated and weird so then I worried you might have hit your head."

"I didn't know you were Supergirl."

"Don't need to be an alien to like aliens. Did I give off a vibe that I was anti-alien when we met?"

"No," I realize. "No you didn't."

"That was a lot of coffee at your desk," she teases. "Trying to keep the dreams away?"

I sigh.

"Kind of. I don't really know how they work. Never trained. The whole family assumed my sister would get them, I mean, hello, it's mother-to-daughter and I'm not even a female descen-"

"Yes," Kara snaps. "Yes you are."

The last time I saw her use that tone of voice was on TV, she was calling on an alien empress to square up and fight like a girl. Yvonne joked it was her Gandalf voice. 

The voice of the epic hero shrieking into the abyss that evil can go no farther, whether it be alien slavers or internalized transphobia.

"Yeah. I guess. Guess I am."

I laugh, just a little. As much as I can with my lungs barely working.

"I like to watch the sky, sometimes, from the ground. It's beautiful down here, too."

_ I'm looking up at the clouds with Kara! _

I feel her pinky brush mine. Without thinking, I grab her hand and squeeze. She squeezes back.

_ Triple fuck. _

"What are we going to do about this?" she sighs. "I mean, at the very least, it's not like I can make you break up with Linda."

"Would you want me to?"

She rubs my hand with her thumb.

"No. I wouldn't. I like spending time with my girls."

"Fuck."

"Fuck, indeed."

Supergirl just swore! Because she -- we -- have feelings for each other, maybe, I think.

_ A girl likes me. _

=====

I don't know how I ended up in the street-level cafe.

"Never," Kara growls. "Do...that...again."

_ Is it possible to mini-orgasm from declarative sentences? _I wonder.

"What happened?"

"I joked that it was like a bad 90's lesbian movie, me falling in love with my student and next thing I know you were running around telling me you weren't crushing and that I could do better and..."

Kara blushes. Again. Which is not fair.

"It was so busy thinking you were cute and waiting for you to calm down I didn't realize you were at the edge of the roof."

"Oh."

She smiles.

"Yeah."

Something is stuck in my eyebrow.

"Hold still, please."

She leans close and puffs on my forehead. Something crawls over my skin and I scrabble back on the table.

"Stick bug," she chortles. "Probably from the tree we crashed through. Harmless."

"Cool fact," she adds. "They invented dabbing. Watch?"

She puffs on the bug and it moves back and forth jerkily.

"Nerd," I scoff.

"Cute nerd?" she pouts.

"Cute nerd."

=====

My queer elder was right. Sappho does not give a flying fuck what happens to my life, only whether I get the girl. There's a girl, I want her, the obstacle is she's my boss and the fix is leaving this great job I have. This job that actually pays my bills that I got all of two weeks after graduation in an industry that hardly hires anyone.

It's keeping me from Kara, so it's gotta go.

By the time my logical brain kicks in, the email program is making a 'whoosh' noise. 

I wrote a scathing, unhinged, terrible email to Lena Luthor herself. I insulted gays, the Luthors, the Irish, women, you name it.

So now I'm facing down the subject of my professional dreams and until this week, the subject of my most frequent sex dreams.

"It seemed like a better idea at the time, uh, ma'am."

Her shiny red lips shift upward.

"I imagine it did. First week panic attack?" she asks.

"Uh, what?"

She taps the printout.

"This isn't the real you. Doesn't match. Doesn't match your work output, doesn't match your supervisor's assessments, doesn't match your Instagram habits, for heaven's sake."

_ Ah. Yeah. I did like a lot of her posts, didn't I? _

I shake my head.

She sits down in her chair which probably costs more than four months' rent and leans forward so we're eye to eye. Elbows on her glass desk, she looks at me, long pale fingers tented.

"Explain."

"I, uh, can't work with Kara."

"Strange. Doesn't match her feedback. Managers report it daily for the first eight weeks, quietly, to make sure we're keeping the good ones. But I'm listening."

"It's, uh, not that."

"Again, explain."

"Iwantobehergirlfriend!" 

"Slower, this time with breathing."

"The, uh, when I met Kara, it was...kapow. Love at first sight."

"And Kara?"

"When she helped me after the coffee fiasco, she admitted she has feelings too."

Lena looks at me, coughs, and then laughs. Then laughs some more. Then laughs again. Then grabs a makeup kit from a drawer to repair her mascara.

"Oh, darling," she coos. "You like Kara? That, I definitely can see. Why was that so hard to say in the email, instead?"

"Stupid millennial?" I offer.

"Ahem!" she grumbles, tapping her own temple.

"Er, right. Sorry."

Lena looks back out at the bullpen, where Kara is chatting with James Olsen and Steve from sports.

"Well, if you two want to pursue that, she can't be your boss, you're right. But you can still both work here, if we shake up the arrangement. Let me talk to her. I have an idea."

As she walks past me, I hear her muttering under her breath.

"Alex was right. Kara's abs are going to bankrupt CatCo."


	10. Technical Manual (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Nia is done waiting and she asks some Tumblr-themed questions and it's awkward until it's really not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nia Nal, Gen-Z, scoundrel, TikTok fiend, is going to do the sexy part first until she can get her old ladies (seriously, on paper? Kara?) to sort their feelings. She's confident that Kara 'sings along to Beauty and the Beast' can do romance too.
> 
> I did some research on various MtoF trans surgeries, their consequences, recoveries and so on. I used the human medicine and tried to have Nia's half-alien genetics not be a crutch.
> 
> Please assume that Nia's choices in her treatment are not something I think all trans folks do.

-Nia-

"Still don't see why we can't do a first date," Kara grumbles. "Or two, I suppose."

"Because I want to..." Nia sighs when her sentence dies halfway through being born. "For starters I both _want _and _care_ for both of you and..."

Linda lifts her head from Nia's lap.

"And capitalists think love is like the title to a car. Ownership. Something that can't be shared. Here, in our home, we are common property. A democracy. The rules are ours to define and adjust. Out there," she gestures at National City's fiery orange blaze of steel, glass and sunset. "Aside from the tabloids, ordinary people would make assumptions."

Nia drops one hand onto Linda's head and drags her nails along the scalp. She pulls Kara in with the other.

"What sexy Karl Marx said. And I'd rather do the one on ones at home. We'll have to communicate and be selfish sometimes and just two of us have special time. On a date? You're both gentle and chivalrous. So I'd want both of you on my arm and if we double date, one of you has to be dressed Supergirl and then it's all sorts of messy. Cat will fly back to yell at Lena and...I like being alive."

Kara laughs.

"OK. At home. Maybe at one of Lena's things where people bring plus twos for social reasons. But we're doing dates. Like at least for now, I get a date every time we...erg..."

"Fuck," Linda offers.

Kara blushes.

"That."

Nia squeezes the two blonde goddesses that somehow -- fuck probability -- are cuddled up against her. She wonders with a pang of guilt if all the good trans people don't get to have was just piled on her somehow. Literally fell into her lap.

They watch the sunset for a while.

"What else?" Kara asks.

"Have you...ever thought about each other?"

Linda chuckles. Kara goes cape-red.

"I like fucking in mirrors," Linda muses. With her head there and her cheek against Nia's thighs, hot breath is going into Nia's skirt at the hem and tickling her knees. and there's a lot of distraction. "And her personality is very different. I like shy ones, as Nia knows."

"I..." Kara stammers. "Wouldn't it be..." She swallows. "I mean, I've touched myself so..."

"Is like masturbation at PhD level," Linda jokes.

Nia chortles.

"And with romantic feelings. I hope."

Kara buries her face in Nia's shoulder.

"Why are all the cute ones into stuff I'm too shy to talk about?"

"Too shy to do?" Nia asks.

Kara shakes her head slightly.

"Winn said something to me once. He said that when I fell in love...wa-pow. It would just smack me."

"So?"

Kara smiles into Nia's shoulder, still burning her face.

"So one day a brunette tripped into my arms. Wa-pow."

Linda hums and her powerful throat carries vibration farther than a human if she doesn't stop, it's going to be hard to have big enough words to discuss boundaries.

Kara lifts her head out of Nia's shoulder.

"I want to try it. I think...the more Linda grows, like she's doing, the easier it'll be for me. To see her as someone totally unique. Till then, expect blushing."

Nia kisses Kara, taking her time to flick her tongue between Kara's puffy, soft, ought-to-be-illegal lips and pushing so Kara tilts her head. Kara does and then she slowly scrapes the lipstick off, dragging her teeth over Kara's lips. She tangles her fingers in golden hair that belongs in a fairy tale and pulls gently to check her work.

Kara's irises are like a thin line, blowtorch and summer sky blue and simmering with her arousal and whatever the horny equivalent of angry heat vision is. Like a coil of wire with high voltage going through it.

"Love these lips," Nia teases, stroking the bottom.

"Love your taste," Kara replies.

Nia then taps Linda's ear.

"Up. Kisses."

When Linda's lips touch hers, four thunderclaps sound in rapid succession outside and a once-in-five-years rainstorm patters the window.

"It's a sign," Kara sighs. "for us."

"Let's fall asleep here, then in the morning...shopping!"

Kara groans.

"Nini, you know I flannel and blue-jeans it for a reason, right?"

Nia laughs.

"Yeah. Because you never had me to help."

"Ugh. Fine, but let's stretch out."

Getting her and Kara and Linda comfy on the same couch suggests Lena wasn't lying about Kara's science chops. Nia is the sandwich, the barrier so that Kara doesn't have to feel too embarrassed. Linda is under her and pulling her close to her front. She leans up against her, one arm hugging her close, hard sinews scraping the underside of her breasts. Kara stretches from the other end, laying her legs over Nia's lap.

Nia, for her part, is about to pop.

_They should've fucking warned me they both sleep in the nude._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Polyamorous sleep geometry is my jam.


	11. Technical Manual (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Nia is done waiting and she asks some Tumblr-themed questions and it's awkward until it's really not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nia Nal, Gen-Z, scoundrel, TikTok fiend, is going to do the sexy part first until she can get her old ladies (seriously, on paper? Kara?) to sort their feelings. She's confident that Kara 'sings along to Beauty and the Beast' can do romance too.
> 
> I did some research on various MtoF trans surgeries, their consequences, recoveries and so on. I used the human medicine and tried to have Nia's half-alien genetics not be a crutch.
> 
> Please assume that Nia's choices in her treatment are not something I think all trans folks do.

**18 Hours Prior | Brazil**

* * *

  
**-Nia- **

Brainy explained dream teleportation to her after a credible threat of denial of Twizzlers. She has Alex's ear and Alex has control of the vending machines at the DEO -- for the time being -- and the snack drawer at the Tower where the Superfriends will regroup after Kara's next expose on prisoner treatment blows the DEO to bits. He didn't explain that it left her ending up feeling like a Gumby that someone had just smooshed back to the original size.

A woman on the beach towel a few feet away rolls over to face her and looks her over. She says something in...Spanish?...and Nia just shrugs at her. Doesn't help her college language classes that this is apparently a _nude_ beach and there is a lot of curvy, sweaty, caramel-brown to dark-choolate-brown female flesh lounging around.

"Junior superhero Dreamer spotted on nude beach in Rio, a statement from Supergirl at eleven!"

Nia spanks the sand off on the thighs of her suit and glances at her cheat sheet.

"Fuck. Portuguese, right."

She slides J'onns translator into her ear. Technically this weird little fish thing could help her purr Shakespeare's sonnets at the mocha sexaccino over there without breaking a sweat. Hopefully, it won't lay eggs in her brain but it'll let her speak whatever language the person talking to her is _thinking _in, including Kryptonian so fair deal.

Slurpable though she is, the woman is not what she's here for.

Bus stop is easy.

The neighborhood it drops her off in, less so. She visualizes one of the curling coils of dream energy and lets it form in her palm. Two thugs approach her and without letting them get a word in she whips it around their ankles, focuses on a streetlight and lets it yank them up. Holding her left arm and forming a disc shield, she points at the pavement.

"Guns. Now."

They comply. She forms a spike dagger in her free hand and stabs both of the submachine guns multiple times, leaving clean, round holes in the _reality _of their workings.

"Anything you stole."

Two dozen wallets are dropped.

"Wait there."

Nia flips through them. At least two-thirds have IDs in them. The problem is she doesn't have the time to return them. She glances up and down the street.

_Convent on every corner._

"Get a different job," she calls over her shoulder as she walks off.

Before too long the energy cord fades and they land with pained squeals on the filthy cement. Curses are shouted and click-click-click of the damaged guns can be heard.

She knocks on the convent door.

"Yes?"

"Hi! I'm a superhero but I'm kind of on a schedule and I bet you nice ladies know someone who can return these. They stole them," she says nodding down the street.

The sister returns with a collection plate and Nia places the wallets in it.

"These have ID, those don't. Hasta la vista!"

When she hears the word 'dumbass white girl' behind her, she cackles.

The clinic isn't hard to find for someone with astral projection. What was hard to find is a safe and not too gross dumpster to hide behind.

She knocks on the door.

"Password?"

"Chestburster," Nia replies. "Get a less gross one though."

The door creaks open and a pair of White Martians, a dentist's chair, and a surgical table are inside. Nia hands over the packet of pictures and X-Rays from her old doctor that she marked up with her requests.

"Money?"

Nia shrugs off her backpack.

"Sixty thousand, American. Small bills."

Banks are insured, after all. Besides, the bad guy went to jail.

The female Martian comes over.

"Are you sure? It will be painful. You might be sore."

Nia nods. She makes a ring with her left hand and pumps the middle of her right through it.

"Daxamites. Both of them. Need a little...insurance policy."

The Martian takes a hot knife, changes her left arm from Martian to human and slices off a strip of meat and skin from her arm. The male does the same and they press the strips together where the cells instantly wriggle and mesh.

"If you're Naltorian, you'll have to energize that. And you're not going to get much out of my drugs. We will need to bring you out for the second procedure."

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

**-Nia-**

Nia comes up behind Kara and 'helps' her with the bra. In the way a thief helps a safe with the lock.

"Nia," Kara teases, "Your gay is showing."

One on one, Kara can lay it on.

"It's just..." she huffs, tossing it on the reject pile. "That's not you. You are so hard to dress. And! These! Are! Amazing!" she complains, flicking her fingernail into Kara's breast each time. 

"So how the name of Vera Wang are there no good bras for them?"

Linda knocks on the dressing room door. The Kasnian Army issue boots are a dead giveaway, even if they're panties-droppingly butch.

"Come in," Kara calls. "Nia was just slapping my boobs."

Linda opens the door and Nia scrambles to cover Kara with her hands -- sacrifices -- and a middle-aged woman in a sundress keels over behind her.

"Find anything?"

"I prefer these."

She holds out a number of plain, white, laceless satin bras and similarly conservative panties.

"Hmm," Nia muses. "Maybe. But those look like someth-"

_Something Marilyn Monroe or Hedy Lamarr wore... Or Susie Mae at the Junior Prom in 1953 wore..._

"Fuck. Of course. Gimme!"

Nia taps her foot on the inside of Kara's ankles.

"Legs, missy."

"Yes, Mistress."

"You do realize I can put those on myself, right?" Kara asks. 

"You do realize that you smell fucking amazing, right?" Nia retorts, dragging her thumbnails across the skin far more than necessary. "Like, it ought not be allowed for _dry _pussy to smell this good."

"Bra," Nia demands, looking at Linda.

"Scalpel. Socket wrench. Tweezers," Kara adds.

"Such terrible dad jokes," Nia grumbles.

She takes a moment to cup Kara's folds through the fabric. Her breath catches.

"See, shopping's not so bad, is it?"

"Now..."

Nia helps Kara into it and clasps it shut.

"I get it..." Nia tells no one in particular. "For you two, it's not fighting gravity, or smooshing together it's _stabilizing_ what's there. Your bodies already fuck gravity and I mean, steel don't sag. Next stop! Dresses!"

"I hate skirts," Kara grumbles.

"There's one in your costume," Nia and Linda reply at the same instant.

=====

"Nia, baby, how are you paying for all this?" Kara wonders. "I remember my starting salary...and not fondly."

Nia looks at the mall map.

"Lottery. Like the little ones. Didn't even _mean to _I just saw some number in a dream. Same time I dreamed about meeting a buff blonde at a club. March of Dimes number had like four too many digits so when I woke up and saw the California lotto, thought I'd test my powers. See if it's background information or just the up front stuff."

"Cheating."

"Not planning to make a habit of it."

"Ha! Basement."

=====

"This is a sex shop!" Kara hisses.

"Good eye."

"They sell," Kara begins before a towering redhead domme walks by with a small brunette on a collar hooked to a solid gold necklace. "That kind of stuff."

"Tell you about _that _when you're older..." Nia chortles.

"Yo!" she calls out, leaning back she can see the counter. "Chris? Help a girl out, huh?"

As usual, Chris' hair, skin, scalpel-precise shave and a subtle dash of eyeshadow basically serves as his implied Grindr profile.

"Hey fag," she jokes, pulling him in for a hug.

"Hey tranny," he replies with a squeeze. "Mmm! How's my kid sister. How can I help my homosexual neighbors across the road?"

"We need some _real _long lasting lube, cleaning supplies, and...I'm thinking something in stainless steel. Matched pair. And cruelty-free harnesses. Got a couple of vegan beefsteaks. I mean, how do you get this lucky, twice, in three days, huh?"

Nia throws her arm around Kara and Linda.

"Ooh," Chris squeals. "Blondes: The Definitive Box Set! Love that."

"Vegan, right, babe?"

"Yeah," Kara replies after rebooting. "Totally."

She is loving how _pale _and horrified Kara is right now.

"Could I see your hand, please?" Chris asks. "Palm out, fingers spread."

"Uh, sure."

Kara holds up her hand. 

"Nia?"

Seeing Kara's free hand twitching, Nia snags it.

"I'm right here, honey."

She reaches up and closes the first three fingers on Kara's hand.

"But like, towards the middle. Ooh! Do you have anything that's like, metal _and _double sided?"

Chris nods.

"If I don't, overnight shipping is for horny people."

Nia peels one finger back.

"The rest of it, yay wide the whole way...and actually...yeah. No deeper than her index finger, cool?"

Chris nods.

"Back soon, girl."

Linda leans over.

"They have strawberry," she whispers to Kara. "But I think that Nia is...cotton candy, yes?"

Kara gulps and nods.

"So," Kara finally manages. "Those were really precise specifications."

"Huh?" 

"Oh, right. Cis perspective. See, when they do the vaginoplasty there's only _so much _rooting around for extra space down there they can do. Only so much extra space. You, you've basically got magic bits that get however long they need and then you have a crazy tough organ at the end. Me? Bit more stuck when it comes to length and width and go too deep and it's intestinal surgery, not just a kick in the cervix. Now, I've taken some precautions, surprise for later but...yeah."

This brightens Kara up.

"You're helping make sure you don't get hurt."

Kara leans in to whisper.

"Keeping people safe is my kink."

"Why two?" Linda asks.

"Cleaning," Nia blurts out.

"Nia..." Kara grumbles. "Out with it."

Nia holds up Karas arm.

"Quit flexing, muscles."

"I'm not!" 

"Jesus! See, this is what I mean! Imagine you're a small, extremely gay woman with a thing for fit women. Like, for example, me. And it's even the tiniest possibility that I can have one of you in both holes at the same time? Just be squeezed between you? Let's just say I'm buying for my hopes and dreams."

Linda looks at Kara.

Kara looks at Nia.

"Standing," they agree.

"Front," Kara decides. "So I can look into her eyes."

"Ooh! Back sound lovely."

"What the fuck!" Nia snarls. "It's like, an hour bus ride back!"

"Just have to wait, gorgeous," Kara teases, giving her a slap on the ass that rings in the quiet of the store.

_And so the teaser becomes the teased, _Nia realizes.


End file.
